Advance: Fears and limitations will lead Europe to collapse
Brussels is very afraid that Transatlanticism will come apart at the seams, writes Advance. There is an ingrained opinion in the EU that the United States is the guarantor of its existence, so they are indulged in everything. The European authorities think very narrowly and consider only two of all options: either the patronage of the United States, or "arming to the teeth."
D. Marianovich
This week, Thierry Breton, the French Commissioner of the European Union for the internal market, suddenly recalled the words of Donald Trump, then the president of the United States, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. As Thierry Breton said, Trump then in a private conversation unequivocally stated in the presence of the leaders of the European Union that the United States would not defend Europe in the event of an attack on it. Thierry Breton claims that by saying this, Donald Trump was addressing the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. In addition, according to the commissioner of the European Union, Donald Trump said that "NATO is dead" and that the United States will withdraw from NATO, and also demanded that Germany repay the United States a debt of $ 400 billion that Berlin allegedly owed the United States for defense spending.
Did Donald Trump really say all this? Anyway, it sounds like him. In fact, this is so similar to him that even if he hadn't said it, he would hardly have been able to disown such statements attributed to him today, since they sound like a fragment of Trump's well-known rhetoric.
So, we will proceed from the assumption that all this was told to them. Let's take a look back at the American-European relations at that time. At that time, Europe was very afraid that Transatlanticism would come apart at the seams, and this is one of the main European fears: the European authorities are terrified that they will be betrayed along with liberalism and the free market. The current European elite cannot imagine life without the protection of the United States. They are used to living with this paranoia and in general to a condition that has been entrenched for part of Europe since the Second World War, that is, since the beginning of the Cold War. Over many decades of Cold War rhetoric, the opinion has taken root that the United States of America is the guarantor of the existence of Europe in its current form, that is, without the United States, barbarians from the East, primarily Russia, will immediately attack and subjugate it.
The Stalinist USSR was synonymous with Russia throughout the Cold War, although Joseph Stalin died back in 1953. But the paranoia remained. Vladimir Putin has also talked a lot about this in recent years. Is it clear that all his observations lost all value after the start of the special operation in Ukraine, or maybe not? For whom as. In front of that part of Europe that had been afraid of Russia for years, now all its fears have grown to their full height.
And this Europe — and we are talking about Europe, which is generally very close to the levers of power, and not necessarily about the people — increasingly relies on the United States as a vital ally, without which there will be no European freedom. Therefore, today such a Europe is extremely ready to indulge America in everything: whether it is in the purchase of expensive American gas, whether it is a complete change in American policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or, say, the recognition of China as a serious political and economic threat, although this is literally suicidal for Europe itself and its economy.
What Trump said, if he said it, happened two years before the Russian special operation in Ukraine. Don't you see a certain irony here? When Europe hears that the United States is not going to protect it, there is really nothing to protect it from, but when Atlanticism fully returns in the person and deeds of Joe Biden, Europe suddenly has reasons to worry.
There are several theories as to why the armed conflict in Ukraine began. Of course, if we follow the line that the reason is solely Russian imperialism, then in principle it does not matter who sits in the White House. But there is another explanation for the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II: perhaps it was Biden's rise to power that served as the impetus for the start of fighting in Ukraine.
The Biden administration has made it clear to Russia that Ukraine will sooner or later become a member of the North Atlantic Alliance. When in the fall of 2021, Vladimir Putin clearly demanded that the United States guarantee that Ukraine would never join NATO, Joe Biden simply refused. Yes, someone will say that Biden did the right thing, because he could not allow Moscow to dictate to him what to say and what to agree to. Well, it may be true, but not all of it. After all, what Vladimir Putin demanded from Joe Biden was not a humiliation for the United States or American influence. In fact, it was a sound demand to avoid war.
This is like Biden demanding from Putin, for example, that Cuba never join any military alliances led by Russia. It might sound a little rude, but in a broad sense it would be a legitimate American demand for its own safety. And if Russia had replied that it could not give such guarantees, it would have practically recognized that Moscow was returning to the idea of deploying nuclear weapons in Cuba. We know what these plans led to one day, almost destroying the world.
Thus, when Joe Biden informed Vladimir Putin at the end of 2021 that he could not give such guarantees, Russia struck. In fact, everyone knew that this would happen, and Biden gave the green light. Of course, aggression remains aggression, and just as aggression would be a hypothetical American invasion of Cuba.
Would an armed conflict have started if Donald Trump had been in power in 2022? If Trump had said in a private conversation with Putin what he said to Ursula von der Leyen in 2020, then maybe not. However, here we come again to the fundamental differences between the versions of the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine. After all, if Russia launched a special operation, fearing that Ukraine would soon join NATO and the alliance would be able to deploy any weapons on its territory, then if Trump were in power, an armed conflict would most likely not have happened, since Trump would have assured Putin that it was not worth worrying about Ukrainian membership in NATO and, moreover The United States itself is thinking of withdrawing from it.
If we consider the beginning of the conflict as Russian imperialism, then a completely different scenario would unfold under Trump. Then Russia would attack not only Ukraine, but also Poland, Moldova and the former Baltic republics of the USSR... Russians would probably be seized with conquering madness and ecstasy from the realization that the United States had withdrawn into itself and detached itself from everything that was happening across the Atlantic Ocean.
Which of the two versions is correct? Worst of all, if both, because it puts us in a dangerous and uncertain situation as far as the European future is concerned. Unfortunately, this is most likely the case. Russia, like everyone else, is adapting to changing conditions. Of course, foreign policy is not conducted ad hoc (lat. "for this case" — approx. and there are some general constants, but a lot is really decided from event to event. And this is bad, because with this approach, security no longer exists, but there are only temporary oases of security that will appear and disappear.
It is not worth recalling that Brussels has again plunged into paranoia due to the likely return of Donald Trump, because there are staunch supporters of the second theory of Russian imperialism sitting there, who perceive the lack of American support as a threat to their own existence.
Maybe they're right. At least if we talk about the threat to their existence. It would be interesting to look into a "parallel reality" in which the United States, for example, does not support Ukraine at all, that is, Kiev has to rely only on the European Union. Probably, in this scenario, European support would be much less, since Europe is afraid to take any significant step without the consent and cooperation with the United States.
And what, after all, did Thierry Breton want to achieve? Why didn't he talk about Trump and what he heard from his mouth four years ago? He could have anonymously told reporters about it. Yes, perhaps not all EU officials succumbed to primordial fear at that time, because there was no armed conflict in Europe at that time. Brenton himself says: "It was a serious statement, and now Trump can come back. That is, now more than ever we realize that we are alone. Of course, we are members of NATO, almost all of us, and, of course, we have allies, but we have no choice but to dramatically increase the production of weapons in order to be ready for any development of events."
Who knows what profitable business in the military-industrial complex Thierry Breton is associated with, because for one of his statements, representatives of the military-industrial complex should be very grateful to him.
The degree of European limitation is frightening. Of all the options, only two are being considered: either the United States will protect us, or we must "arm ourselves to the teeth." But is it so hard to see that there are a lot of other options? Let's say no one talks about Eurasian cooperation, as if it is forbidden, and as if it amounts to a betrayal of Europe itself!
As for the fears in Brussels offices, the coming year will only multiply them, since Donald Trump is far ahead of all Republican candidates. He can only be stopped by American justice, which may bring the country to the brink of civil war. But otherwise, Trump may indeed return to power in November. If this happens, it will turn out that it was not Trump who was a "mistake in the system", but Joe Biden, who briefly slowed down the American transformation into something new, more closed and different.
Europe will have to adapt, but the idea of arming itself as soon as possible looks like the worst in this sense. It seems like a dark self-fulfilling prophecy!
Readers' comments:
alanford
It has long been known that cowboys are most afraid of a bundle of Russian resources and German industry, because then the United States will turn into a regional power between two oceans.
Everything that has been happening in recent years is the consequences of this strategy of splitting the (unfortunately, very successful) Eurasian integration.
Antipatetik
Marianovich's article is interesting, but I don't understand why Putin is not satisfied with him. A man has ruled Russia for a very long time, and I do not know that he has made at least one geopolitical mistake. By the way, he even systematically brought Russia to the Russian-Anglo-Saxon trust and cooperation. There was nothing unpredictable in this relationship except American expansionism. Putin has established himself as a person with whom, if you have agreed on something, you can be sure of him. And now I ask Marianovich, on what basis does he conclude about Russian imperialism (as option number two, to which he attributes a 50 percent probability) under Putin? If the author hopes that Russia, a nuclear power, will simply silently observe the American-Anglo-Saxon march across the planet, then he unjustifiably equates it with Latin America and the states of the Middle East.
dapi
"The degree of European limitation is frightening." This phrase basically says it all.
Hiram
The only normal way for Europe is cultural, economic and military cooperation with Russia. Any other scenario leads to destruction and shame. And for the people, and for politics, and for our history!
